Pacific Northwest Road Trip 2008

We left on time at 8:00am to pick up the tent trailer from storage.  We had to head to West Sacramento to drop the cat off at Wag Hotel and I was anxious about the traffic around downtown Sacramento since this was the first business day of the big I-5 closure.  The traffic on the surface streets turned out to be about normal commute level. 

After passing Santa Rosa on highway 101, we were out of the urban areas and into the coastal range.  The drive was beautiful but had to maneuver through hilly terrain with a full car and tent trailer.  I became very fond of the passing lanes and turnouts to let the other vehicles pass me.  Slow and steady seemed to work fine for the Murano up and down the steep terrain. 

Once past Garberville, we were in Redwood country.  After exiting 101 at Myers Flat, we turned onto the scenic and gorgeous Avenue of the Giants where we were surrounded by redwood groves.  We arrived at the Humboldt Redwoods State Park Visitor’s center and Burlington Campground. 

The campground was virtually empty – just a handful of other campers.  We were staying in site # 30 towards the back of the campground.  Our site was nice and large with a double-wide paved parking pad.  Everything looked good until I realized that the parking pad was not very level side-to-side.  Since the trailer needed to be level all around, this was my first experience with using the special leveling blocks (kind of like really big Legos for RVs).  After several attempts and restacking of the blocks, the trailer was level and ready to be popped up.  Woohoo! 

After dinner, we put Buck in his dog stroller and snuck him onto one of the nature trails in the redwood grove.  California State Parks are not very dog-friendly and only allow dogs in campgrounds, parking lots and some paved (auto) roads.  The stroller worked like a charm!

We returned to the campground just before dark and settled down to start a nice and peaceful campfire.  As I struggled with lighting the firewood which was not very dry and seasoned, the darkness and dead silence of the campground was abruptly interrupted by a large procession of speeding cars whipping through the loop.  There were about 7 – 8 large vehicles which to my dismay all parked in neighboring campsites.  Out poured a horde of children followed by several adults who appeared to be “in charge” and yelling out directions.  After the children ran around to the restrooms, they went to work pitching tents.  It appeared to be some church or youth group on a camping trip.  Thankfully, once the tents were up, the adults directed them to bed…  With clear skies it was getting pretty cold so I gave up on the campfire since the wood was too wet and turned in for the night.  It was nice and warm in the popup with Mr. Heater (propane heater) running since there were no electric/water hookups in this campground.